Galaxy Z Fold 5 teardown shows its new shock dispersion layer

Samsung‘s new book-style foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold 5, is a relatively minor upgrade over last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 4. The new model folds flat without a gap, but that’s pretty much the only notable change on the outside. On the inside, the company has redesigned the hinge to allow for gapless folding. It also claims to have added a shock dispersion layer under the folding screen. Popular YouTube channel JerryRigEverything‘s Galaxy Z Fold 5 teardown video gives us a look at these internal changes.

Zack Nelson, the man behind this YouTube channel, is known for torturing and tearing apart brand-new phones to test their durability and show their internal setups to everyone. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 has already passed through Zack’s rigorous durability tests, holding surprisingly strong during a forceful reverse bending. He has now put the foldable under his knife. The shredding of the phone begins at the front this time around, with the hard plastic bumper around the display coming out first.

Once the bumper is gone, you can pull out the display. However, Zack fails to remove it without damage. Under the display assembly, Samsung has pasted a thin layer of foam onto the metal frame of the phone. The strips of black cushions have circular cutouts. Zack says these strips likely have nothing to do with the new shock dispersion layer. Instead, these could be to compensate for variances and tolerances in the internal structure. So the digging continues to find the shock dispersion layer.

The Galaxy Z Fold 5’s new shock dispersion layer is nothing major

Zack pulled off a few layers from the display assembly, including the digitizer for the S Pen, but couldn’t find any changes over the Galaxy Z Fold 4. It turns out that the thin layer of foam on top of the metal frame is what we have been looking for. Samsung is seemingly calling it a shock dispersion layer. It will probably help the foldable absorb shock when it falls on its folding display. Nothing major, but it should make a difference. As Zack puts it, “any protection is good protection.”

The YouTuber then proceeds to tear apart the Galaxy Z Fold 5 in his traditional style — from the back. The back panel comes off fairly easily but the cover display is broken. Once we are inside, we can see that Samsung has provided pull tabs for both battery units. These tabs make removing the battery effortless. After removing several other components, we can finally see the hinge. It has accumulated some dust that Zack put on the phone in purpose during his durability test.

However, the Galaxy Z Fold 5’s dust-laden hinge still works fine without any trouble. That’s nice to see. The foldable doesn’t have an official IP rating for dust resistance, but a little bit of dust won’t do much damage. You can Watch the full teardown video below.